Measuring Bluff Erosion on the Great Lakes

A new video lets you soar above Lake Michigan bluffs and find out why some of them are crumbling into the waters below. Sea Grant-funded researchers Lucas Zoet and J. Elmo Rawling with the University of Wisconsin have created an instrument that can measure bluff failures and help predict when they might occur. Timothy W. Coursen, Sea Grant project assistant, created the video with some additional aerial drone recordings made by Ozaukee County, where they need to better understand the erosion process in a popular county park along Lake Michigan.

Coursen said, "Before making this video program I had no idea that the higher water levels and increased erosion in the Great Lakes posed such a serious threat to structures built along the lakeshores. Luke's research project will really help increase the knowledge about the ways in which bluff erosion occurs."